Clarke suggests barrier to prevent suicides on Hoan

Milwaukee bridge has been site of 16 suicides since 2001

Building a barrier on the Hoan Bridge to prevent people from jumping to their deaths would reduce the number of people who kill themselves in Milwaukee County, Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. said Friday.

People who are deterred from jumping generally do not go on to kill themselves by other means, according to researchers who study suicide.

Sixteen people have killed themselves by jumping from the Hoan Bridge since 2001, according to the sheriff's office. At least three others were talked down or prevented from jumping by police in that time period, while a man who jumped from the bridge this month survived the fall.

Most of the people who jump to their deaths in Milwaukee County do so from the Hoan Bridge, said Karen Domagalski, operations manager at the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office. Five people have killed themselves since 2001 by jumping from the High Rise Bridge just south of the Marquette Interchange, according to the sheriff's office.

Clarke suggested building the barrier in a letter sent Thursday to Frank Busalacchi, secretary of the state Department of Transportation. The department has received Clarke's letter but does not yet have a response, DOT spokeswoman Peg Schmitt said.

Clarke, who is running Tuesday against Chris Moews for the Democratic nomination for sheriff, said a barrier would not change the overall appearance of the bridge.

Clarke's letter comes as state officials are considering proposals about whether to replace the Hoan or consider an alternative.

In July, crews began installing plastic netting on the underside of the bridge to catch concrete breaking off the structure.

Work to repair the roadway atop the bridge will begin next month and be completed in 2011. Expected to cost $12 million to $17 million, the extensive patching will coincide with an inspection necessary to guide decisions on whether to rebuild the bridge deck or replace it.

Clarke's letter notes that crews in Seattle are building a nearly 9-foot-tall suicide-prevention fence for the city's Aurora Bridge and that a similar barrier was built on a bridge in Toronto where people often killed themselves.

Authorities in San Francisco allocated $5 million in federal grant money this summer for final design of a net intended to prevent people from leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

The barrier in Seattle cost $4.6 million, while the net on the Golden Gate Bridge is expected to cost about $45 million, according to officials overseeing both projects.

Although Clarke does not have a cost estimate for a barrier on the Hoan Bridge, he said the barrier would eventually pay for itself by eliminating the need for sheriff's deputies, police, firefighters and the U.S. Coast Guard to respond to suicide attempts at the bridge, which often require recovery efforts in the Milwaukee River and lane closures on I-794.

The barrier also will save lives, said Clarke, who said his proposal was prompted by the number of people who jump from the bridge.

"I don't think this area is that cold and callous that we would only look at cost," Clarke said. "I don't say it's worth every penny to save one life. I'm not that kind of guy. You've got to balance this out. Sixteen (suicides) is a lot. That area, more than any other area in this county, is where people jump from."

Much of the research on suicide involves interviews with people who have been thinking about taking their own lives or who survived a suicide attempt. Steve Saunders, a psychology professor at Marquette University, said people may contemplate suicide for a long time, but the decision to make a suicide attempt is usually an impulse that Saunders described as "suicide crisis."

The crisis can be brief, lasting as little as an hour, Saunders said. "If you can just get them past that, you have a better chance of saving their (lives)," he said.

People in crisis seek ways of killing themselves that are accessible and that they know will be effective, Saunders said. Anything that causes a delay - making a gun less accessible or making a bridge difficult to jump from - can help, he said.

Phones linking callers to suicide-prevention hotlines have been installed on some bridges in the United States, but barriers are the best way to prevent people from jumping to their deaths, said John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Research has shown that people who are prevented from jumping to their deaths usually do not seek another place to jump and do not try to kill themselves in another way, Draper said.

"There's something about a specific spot - perhaps its aesthetic beauty, perhaps it's a landmark, or something (else) that renders it special and different and not just a place to kill yourself, but a special place," Draper said.

The fact that making suicide more difficult is often enough to prevent people from killing themselves "speaks in some way to the ambivalence that people naturally have at the deepest level about killing themselves, even though they might be completely intolerant of the pain that they're suffering from," Draper said.

"They may be intent on trying to stop this pain in some way, but that doesn't mean that they are, at the absolute core of their being, convinced that suicide is the only way," he said.

Prevention resources Suicide prevention resources include the Milwaukee crisis hotline, (414) 257- 7222, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-TALK (8255). More information about suicide prevention is available at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

Tom Held of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

About Sharif Durhams

Sharif Durhams is the social media editor and a digital strategist for the newsroom.